After-Midnight Blogger, Reflection on Night, Golf, Prayer
Mar 1st, 2009 | 10 responses
I just wanted to say that sometimes we co-bloggers at TMV talk amongst ourselves about why we write, how we write… and I believe some late nights that it’s because many of us are helplessly insane and have to write ourselves back into sanity every night…
Or semi-sanity
Or sanity defined only by us alone.
and also, you, reader, come to mind, late at night especially, you know when the tide is somewhere in the middle of neither coming in or going out, and the lights out the windows from where we sit writing, well, those lights go out one by one, like filling in a screen finally with all black pixels, save the sky which keeps it random white dots.
I think of you and what you are doing, maybe sleeping, maybe making love (I hope), maybe watching Jack Black in the latest King Kong film at this late hour… If you’re awake now, which is about 2:36a.m. Mountain Standard Time here, it’s not likely you will go to sleep anytime soon. Rather pour another (here cup of hot tea), and light another ciggie (here, no ciggies, but definitely on this winter night, light a fire) and try to read a little….
I’m looking at the latest MacLife about how I can make a dinosaur of a CPU into a Ferrari overnight with only this speedo thingie or another that all have names like bands during the Def Leppard period. I read through Newsweek earlier, on how stress can be good for you… from their lips to God’s ears. And the pix in the mag are taken by photographers with big cojones and ovarios… dangerous times, murderous evil walking the land… and they stand there armed only with a little metal box with a lens.
Sometimes I think we’re all mad… that we can somehow manage with all that is ever going on of mayhem, to think about things that are not mayhem. And maybe it is true that ‘the opposite’ comes to mind because the psyche must balance itself with both ends of the imaginal and emotional spectrum, or else go completely grief-stricken… which in some ways, I can understand as a form of psychosis when that grief is so deep.
So, probably compensatorily, I’m thinking tonight too about an article I’ve wanted to write about for a long time, something I am essentially stupid about… that is, golf. I know, I know. It’s got to be compensatory.
I’d like to write about golf mainly because I have seen pictures of golf course in places on this earth that look like God lives there — they are so dramatically holy. At edges of cliffs over oceans that invented the color blue, on greens that are primal viridian lit from the inside as though with candles: the land literally seems to glow.
And the idea of human beings being at peace on those lands, any lands really, that’s the idea I think must be part of the golfer’s instinct…. too. To go be at peace for 9 or 18 holes. To take a sheaf of little silver sticks, and a white blob of rubber thread with a plastic carapace, and play. Then, to do it again. And again… to be at peace.
Though the ‘game’ of golf matters, I imagine the peace must be the matter that really matters, the solitude, the ‘being alone while being together.’ I could be wrong, but it seems to me from watching golf on TV that in the nth moment right before the shot, if the golfer can eject from ego and pull the chute string, she or he could in those moments of the swing that is ‘just so’ …. find the updraft mentally and in spirit… and thus ‘soar through’ the swing and follow through… remembering– being seated for those moments — in their true selves once again. Exhilarating.
The cartoons of golfers tying their silver sticks in knots might not come so much from frustration with missing the shot, but rather from missing a chance to be in the zone of radiant self… a sense of augmented goodwill, well-being, peace and pride that is soulful, far more than egoistic.
Soon I’ll be praying the last prayer of the night. I live on a tiny tiny lake in the Rockies, and it’s 27 degrees outside, and the moon is just a little crescent. You’d think the moon would be swaying on its string in the sky from the winds that are howling right now. But I’ll step out on the porch in a few minutes here, in big black parka with the black fake-fur rimmed hood, and ask that however possible… the souls of the world be/ do/ be given/ be shown— and in ways they can recognize— whatever the next best step is for each… and these prayers include you too.
Things are different at night. Night magnifies. Tonight, as you can see, perhaps like you too in your own ways, I’ve an especially strong sense, that ‘being at peace on the land’ whether to play golf, or to pray, and all else — must be one of the greatest privileges of our times… perhaps the only thing all of us are striving so hard toward, for ourselves, for the world at large… and the world at small.
10 Responses to “After-Midnight Blogger, Reflection on Night, Golf, Prayer”
Nice reflecting Dr. E. ~ and as always, thanks for sharing. It's cold here by the Great Lakes too, but I rarely mind winter, just dress warm and enjoy it. Lately I've brought a little peace (and perhaps sanity) to my cluttered soul by building nestboxes for birds and putting them out in the woods and fields. Pretty low-tech, but effective way to connect with something ancient and and real, at least for me. It's too early for nesting for most birds, although the Great Horned owls are already sitting on eggs believe it or not. The scouts of some species are starting to look for nest sites though, so it's a good time to get the boxes out there, and it gets me out of the house too.
dear Dr. E. . . i too have thought about my attraction for golf. . .i often watch/listen to golf on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. . .and find it meditative and relaxing, i love the golf narrators voices, slow, soft, often introspective and analytical. . . I have another drawl to golf, i do not sense in the other sports. . .( I have often felt repelled by the brute force and physicality of sports such as football and can never quite understand the part of the masculine that can invest such vast expenditure of energy to the sport.)
But there is something about golf that exhibits qualities in the masculine i am drawn, such as; composed and seemingly relaxed negotiation of the course, the external weather elements along with the internal skill, focus both narrow and wide ranged, proficiency, confidence, missing the mark with dignity and hitting the mark with humility, the internal and external attentiveness to self, other, and environment. Dr. E. i chose celibacy a number of years ago, and i am happy and really good at it, but if i where to enter an external relationship it would be to the ideal masculine of golf. . . lol!
Disclaimer: ( i do not mean to offend and say that golf is a man's sport)
Dr. E. the last two paragraphs are most beautiful. . .it takes me to country walks at night in nature, in all kinds of seasons and weather conditions. . .so much mystery where the best kinds of silence can be experienced. . . it is both prayer and reverence as i allow the images to kaleidoscope as the nighttime covers. . .thanks. . .
Last night whilst you were typing, thinking on golf and watching the slip of a moon sit still up in the sky as the winds cried to god about something – we know not what – but I can guess it's something like, “Life sucks down here sometimes!!!!”)…
I drew my wee stick drawings from 7 PM to about 2 AM, then after putting away my inks and such, I realized I wasn't gonna be able to sleep.
I hate it when that happens.
So, I put on a flick (Dream of Life – documentary about Patti Smith).
I'm a Smith fan (or was, back in the day) and the documentary didn't have any new info on the lady so I was somewhat disappointed.
Then, I'm sad to say, I did light another one.
I promised myself I'd be quit by my birthday and it's almost two weeks past. I just don't seem to be able to get under 10 – 15 a day BUT I'm working on it! (I was past 2 packs a day before New Years so I do see staying under 15 a day as some sort of achievement).
So, after kicking myself for hitting 11 cigs that day….
I decided to log on and look up Rimbaud's bio (for the umpteenth time) …nothing new there either (what do I expect over 100 years later).
THEN..
I stopped by your blog site Doc. I musta just missed your posting because I didn't see this blog until tonight (Sunday night, 11 pm).
So…
I went and looked up a few of the poems Patti Smith did that made me like her stuff to begin with.
Horses… Rock and Roll Ni–er….Gloria …and, Birdland. I found some links for them and went and listened to Smith performing them by way of youtube.
What a dweeb I can be.
I had forgotten how terribly sad the poem Birdland makes me feel.
I cried so hard that I had to take my inks and such BACK out and start drawing again (mind distraction helps with depression or so I hear) …
And finally …after finishing the stick drawing I've been working on for the several weeks, and now feeling vaguely satisfied with life in general (and the tears had stopped – damn that poem!)…
I lit up another one (ARGH) and after extinguishing the damn thing…
I saw that daylight was about to make herself known in Nebraska.
I tapped my fingers on the desk and thought, “Oh yay Chris! You've managed to meet the dawn, yet again.”
So, I covered up the bigger window with one of those huge beach towels to block out the light and put on a CD. Halfway through the CD I finally fell asleep.
In my humble opinion, we are turning into a nation of INSOMNIACS and I really need to figure my sleep issues out (not to mention the nicotine thing).
Just my two cents worth.
Ghosty
PS If ANYONE has some advice or info on quitting smoking (not half way, all the way) PUH LEASE let me know. No one I know even believes I'm going to quit now cuz I am just not getting it done and that's embarrassing.
Sniff ..
Oh well. It could be worse …
It could be …uh …heroine or crack cocaine or …argh.
sigh
No… making promises to yourself and breaking them is “the worst.”
I keep hearing that phrase play in my mind, over and over again, “There's always a reason but never an excuse.”
In any case…
Night night.
*waving from front porch*
Golf is a myriad of things. It is the hunt, the weather, the company, the flora, the fauna, and mostly the knowledge that every shot, by skill or luck, has the possibility of greatness.
dear ghost, i know what you mean about sleep issues. And running through the jillion night poets looking for the truth one more time.
and, re cigarettes, I suggest seeing a hypnotherapist or an NLP person, and preparing yourself to stop dead stop, and then doing it. You cant wean gradually; the neuro receptors suck that stuff up and just drive you straight into the wall to crave more. Think of addicts who crash. Their bodies push them, not their minds so much.
Prepare your fam and friends that you will likely be nasty-tense-testy for about two weeks. Nicotine is a pseudo relaxant. You must find another way to relax. It helps to take deep breaths instead. It helps many people to drink lots of water, chew gum, chew a toothpick, use mouthwash. Many different things can help. 5% help here, 6 percent there, 10 percent there, the self-helps all add up.
The way I did it 23 years ago… had to stop going to same restaurant for lunch every day. Everyone smoked. And the 'ritual' of smoking, a man's hands cupped around mine, that last signal gallantry was hard to give up. But had to. I could see where it all was leading. Needed to be as clean in food and body as possible in order to 'see'. I still adore dark chocolate. I dont drink. Nature is most often enough. And laughing. And poetry. And love. And silliness that hurts no one.
Again, plan your date to quit, prepare yourself and others, keep a sad/mad journal, take lots of walks, dont go to places y ou used to frequent and smoke. Cuss alot, that's what some people do. Drink hot tea to go to sleep. Practice meditation or relaxation techniques, seriously. You can do it, and I think most of us who have quit for a long time, at first tried to say we could taper off. We couldnt. Hang in there. You have to pre-plan and get ready. Seriously think of all the sneaky things the monkey mind does to crib quitting. When you're ready, you're ready. And you'll smell fresh, and not burn holes in your clothes anymore, and m ost of all, your lungs which are supposed to have flexible sacs like fluffy angel hair will unstick themselves from all the tar in cigarettes, and you'll be able to breathe as you were meant… freely
dr.e
dearest Teeparty, welcome
*waving back from the deck.
I very much liked how you put it about golf, and guess who I was thinking about while I was writing? If it hadnt been the middle of the night, I would have called you up and asked, do I have this close to right? I like the part where you said it is the hunt. I can see that.
dr.e
dear river, I like that about the 'golf voice' on tv. I could hear it as I read your words. There's oddly enough a 'bowling voice' too, isnt there. lol. And then basketball, baseball, football 'screaming voice.' And the incredibly strange voice of commenters at ballroom dancing and dog competitions. lol
I did note also all else you wrote river. It's here, you know where.
dr.e
dear JSpencer, that is SO cool!
I can just see you doing it, walking with the nestboxes. That is just so cool!
dr.e
dear Ghosty. . .best of luck with the quite smoking challenge. . .i loved smoking and did not think i would be able to give it up. . .like you i tried a few times and would get up in the middle of the night and head to a Quick Trip for a pack. . .
I spent some time asking the psychological questions as to why i smoked. . .and was able to see the reason was toxic. . .my mother would hide from my father and smoke, when she would get caught i would say they where mine and then stage an adolescent defiance trying to model a upfront NO to domination . . but alas she was from a different generation of women. . . So i think those questions of how you got there and what keeps it going are important to bring to the surface.
Then i read how many of the major companies put over 500 different additives and many of them are to enhance addition. . .and that was additional impetus to quit . . . ( defiance lead me to take the first cigarette and found a defiance to made it much easier to smoke the last one.. . .mercy!) . . .So i spent some time searching out brands that had no additives and allowed the body to detox from the additives first before taking on the nicotine addiction. . . I tried the Native Brand, i think it is called American Eagle but found there are many other no additive brands that are not as harsh. . . .
When i was ready to quit went and sat at the feet of Durga the Universal Mother at the HIndu temple and surrendered it, then came home and took a long walk and found that place of “total resolve within”. . .this time i did not throw away the cigarettes, but put the last pack in a drawer. . . The final strategy was i would only allow one thought expression; SMOKING IS NOT AN OPTION.. . . I refused to allow the mind to engage in getting looped into thinking about smoking thus signaling desire. . .
I quit 12 years ago. . .and what was strange i did not experience withdraw and did not go through craving. . . it was so much easier than the previous attempts. . .the pack of cigarettes are still in the drawer. . .there was something about the control being from within rather than the cigarettes being non accessible helped.
It is really nice not smoking. . .i wish you the best Ghosty. . .and be kind to yourself each step of the way, for your good will get you there when its right. . .
Dear Doc and River…
Thank you VERY much for the suggestions!
I'm looking into the hypnotist/NLP stuff now Doc. Seems there's only one in my area, however, all we need is one, right? Might be a bit of a wait to get an appt but I'll use that time to “ready myself.”
My family is gone so I only have a couple of friends to warn about the upcoming adventure of nicotine withdrawal and I, literally, just called and told them, “I'm going to be setting the date for sometime this month so …be prepared.” (My family, no doubt, is in that “other place” we all go to after this life ends talking to each other saying stuff like, “WELL thank GOD she waited till we were gone! You know how bitc-y she can be WITH those damn cigarette things! Can you imagine what she's gonna be like without them??” )
LOL
I also have written down the other things you've suggested and will be trying each and all of them out as I go…
I also heard taking showers help… another 5% eh?
River…
I looked it up… the Farmers Almanac says that the 14th and 24th of this month are the best days for smoking so I'll be looking at those dates for closing the book on the smoking story.
Thanks to you both! You've both given me quite a bit to think on and a lot of encouragement as well.
Also…it's nice to have support.
Thanks!
Ghosty